


Now I Run

by TsarinaTorment



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, Canonical Character Death, Family, Gen, Next Generation, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2019-07-06 02:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15876486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Itachi's son mourns his passing.((Transferring my old fics over from FFN))





	Now I Run

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Uchiha Heiwa walked round and round and round.  He was pacing.  Seven years old, and already he knew the pain of a loss.  His father, the one that had taught him everything he knew – right and wrong, how to fight – was dead.  Killed by his brother.  It had been his destiny.  His father had explained that it would happen, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear.  Destiny was inescapable.  He didn’t know what his would be – the same as his father’s?  To be killed by his own family?  He didn’t have a brother, but he had an uncle.  An uncle he hated with all his heart.  That one day, he might want to kill, just as his uncle killed his father.  It was a vicious circle, he knew.  A mirror caught his eye, and he looked at it, before recoiling in shock.  Until then, he had never realized how much he resembled his father.  The same, cold, black eyes with grief locked away somewhere.  That was how his father had looked – and that was how he looked.

 

 _ **Tell me how the circle ends**_  
 _**There’s no beginning**_  
 _**Everything that came before**_  
 _**Will come round again**_  
 _**And I look in the mirror**_  
 _**My father’s eyes look back at me**_  


Heiwa knew the truth about how his clan had died – his father hadn’t kept that from him.  The whole truth.  All of it.  The blackmail, the order, the inescapable mission.  Seven years old, just like his uncle had been when he had everything torn away from him.  Life was harsh, especially for a shinobi as young as Heiwa.  And now his father was dead, there was no-one to protect him.  He’d never known his mother – he didn’t even know her name.  He was pleased that he’d been brought up away from Konoha, away from the discrimination that he would have faced.  Away from the stereotype of an Uchiha.  His father had brought him up in a manner that meant he was free to live his life how he chose, away from any influences.

 ** _  
_**_**He gave me a road to choose**_  
 _**He gave me freedom**_  
 _**And I pray I’m strong enough**_  
 _**To walk in his shoes**_  
 _**And I hope that I become**_  
****_Half the man he'd want me to be_   


Heiwa walked away from the mirror, away from the image of his father and towards where he knew his destiny would, one day, be waiting for him.  Thoughts of revenge flitted through his mind.  Kill his uncle.  Avenge his father.  But then something entered his mind.  A feeling of being scolded.  Being told that he wasn’t to do that.  And he knew that it was his father, even now protecting his brother and guiding him.

 ** _  
_**_**Cos I feel you guiding me**_  
 _**Showin’ me the way when I’m misdirected**_  
 _**I know you’re not here but I feel connected**_  


Heiwa had to move on with his life, so he did.  Fighting in the Great War against Akatsuki – against the organisation that had sent his father to his death.  But through all of it, he felt like nothing more than a fake, a copy.  Dark hair, identical to his father’s.  Dark eyes, identical to his father’s.  Sharingan, like his father.  He didn’t even have the Mangekyo.  He couldn’t help who his father had been – he was proud of it – but other people judged him for it.  Uchiha Itachi, the traitor.  Uchiha Itachi, the clan killer.  It was a long time before he heard Uchiha Itachi; the hero.  Everyone knew he was his son, and no-one cared.  His uncle wouldn’t go near him, for some reason, but that was okay.  He knew how to live alone.  His father had taught him that.

  
_**‘Cos everything that I am**_  
 _**Comes from a better man**_  
 _**And all that I’ve said and done**_  
 _**Can’t rewrite my history**_  
 _**Right there for all to see**_  
 _**I’m just my father’s son**_  
 _**Taught me to walk, now I run**_  
 _**Now I run**_  


Heiwa couldn’t always cope with it, though.  Sometimes the loneliness was just too much and he wanted it to end.  He wanted to be back in his father’s arms and cry about the injustice of the world.  But he couldn’t, and that hurt.  There was a girl – a girl his age, and she loved him.  He wanted to love her, but it wouldn’t be right.  He couldn’t love someone when he was incomplete like this.  He couldn’t love someone when he couldn’t even love himself.  But that familiar, nagging, feeling reappeared, encouraging him to just live.  If he closed his eyes, he could picture his father smiling at him, telling him that it was alright to love her back.

  
_**Sometimes when I lose myself**_  
 _**In my weakness**_  
 _**I can feel the touch of his**_  
 _**Unmistakable hands**_  
 _**And they’re pushing me forward**_  
 _**Back into the circle again**_  


Heiwa looked down at the small bundle in his arms and smiled.  Uchiha Itachi smiled back up at him.  His wife put her arm round him and he knew.  He had to be for his son what his father had been for him.  He had to support and encourage his son, no matter what.

  
_**And I hope my son sees in me**_  
 _**The kind of man that he was to me**_  


Heiwa still thought of himself as a copy though.  It didn’t matter that his son thought he was the best person in the world – he had thought that about his own father.  It didn’t matter that he was now accepted by the shinobi communities.  His uncle still never spoke to him, ignored his son whenever they passed in the street, but it was okay now.  Because they both missed his father and there was nothing they could do about it, except keep living their lives, because that was what he had taught them both as they grew up.

  
_**‘Cos everything that I am**_  
 _**Comes from a better man**_  
 _**And all that I’ve said and done**_  
 _**Cant rewrite my history**_  
 _**Right there for all to see**_  
 _**I’m just my father’s son**_  
 _**Taught me to walk, now I run**_  
 _**Now I run**_  


Heiwa grew to old age, something that his father had never achieved.  But he still thought of himself as just a copy.  His mannerisms, his jutsu, he had never learnt anything his father hadn’t known, and he had never lost his father’s looks.  His death came suddenly, peacefully.  He died in his sleep, running towards the light at the end of the tunnel.  Running, because he knew that when he got there, his father would be waiting for him.  And he was; Heiwa jumped into his arms, once again the seven year old boy he had been.

  
_**And everything that I am**_  
 _**comes from a better man**_  
 _**And all that I’ve said and I’ve done**_  
 _**Can’t rewrite my history**_  
 _**Right there for all to see**_  
 _**I’m just my father’s son**_  
 _**Taught me to walk, now I run**_  
 _**I run**_

**Author's Note:**

> The song is _Now I Run_ by Shannon Noll


End file.
